“And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
2 Corinthians 11:12-15 ESV
President Biden is calling for gun confiscation.
Like all tyrants and liars, he doesn’t come right out and say it but the purposes of the measures he outlined yesterday in an address to the nation has that goal in mind. Be warned. And stay armed. He advocates for gun manufacturers to be sued out of existence and proposes nothing that would have actually stopped the violence of the latest mass murder. That’s how you know he’s lying. Armed guards in the school is the rational and easy solution to the problem at hand. Instead he and his liberty hating allies demonize the very heart and soul of self defense.
All Christians, whether they like guns themselves or not, must logically support the principles of self-defense and liberty. To love our neighbor can’t mean wanting him in danger and/or slavery. Let’s look at why Christians must understand that private gun ownership is Biblical.
To start, don’t be naive. We live in a fallen world. Sin causes conflict, oppression and violence. Cain killed his brother, Abel, due to jealousy and hatred of God. Cain was angry with God. He was angry at life. He yearned to be free of responsibility and resented his brother whom, he was convinced, had things easy in life. The spark of violence lies in the heart of man that’s angry at God. Most of the time that spark doesn’t ignite into the inferno of murder; it simmers low, it bubbles, it pops, it spits in seething bitterness. If erupts, though, when it has the power to do so. Thus, as the Bible makes clear, the root of violence on earth is man’s war with God. We can’t get our hands on Him to make Him do our bidding, so we lay hold of our neighbor.
This is the story of sin. It’s the story of Cain and Abel. It’s the story of the Song of Lamech, the story of Nimrod, and the same story of those who killed the prophets and even our Lord. Scripture is clear that man’s heart is the problem, not his weapons. God doesn’t blame the sword for murder. He blames man and his sin-crazed passions. He doesn’t command us to put away our swords, but to repent of our sins. Scripture is about sin control through grace, not sword control through the state. There is no Biblical warrant for the state to disarm its citizens in the name of peace because the Bible, being the word/law of God, knows that peace can’t come to men at war with God. To that end, no state is sinless anyway, All empires rest upon the power of the sword/gun. History is the story of man’s greed for power and his struggle to hold it. The redemptive-historical story, on the other hand, is how Jesus Christ saves sinners – and wins the war man declared on Him – by dying on the cross, thereby bringing men back to Him through imputed righteousness.
The ultimate cure for violence is the cross of Jesus Christ because without righteousness we can’t have peace. Wherever sinners go they bring that sin and conflict with them. Sin is moral lawlessness (self-rule). This means that people who hold the core belief that they’re a moral law unto themselves will inevitably and eventually come into conflict with one another. Until such a time where men come to God in faith, repenting of their sin, and placing their trust in Him, they will not have peace.
Second, the church and the gospel are, therefore, the ultimate answers to mass murders. Loving our neighbor is the fulfilling of God’s moral law but this love won’t happen unless and until we stop playing god. His moral order is for faithfulness to Him, sexual fidelity within a Christ-centered family, productive work that glorifies Him and serves our neighbor truthfully, and a God-honoring civil government that punishes crime if/when it occurs. The word of the Lord commands us to punish the criminal. How? Through the civil magistrate. In yesterday’s tragedy a police officer shot and killed the moral monster responsible for the execution of those innocent children. The police officer is, then, a hero among us who did his duty as God’s avenger (Romans 13:2-5). Just as well, a private citizen, had they been armed and able, could also have used violence to defend innocent life. This is God’s commandment.
The atheist Left, predictably, is now calling for “common sense gun control” in the wake of the murders. This is disingenuous since they offer no concrete plan to actually curtail murder. There’s already “gun control” in that there are background checks, etc. The thing to understand about their hatred of guns is the theological underpinning of it all.
Being lawless, like Cain, they aren’t remorseful for their sin but for the consequences of sin. Moral lawlessness is what Cain lamented when God punished him. Cain knew he was unsafe living amongst other men who held the same religious principle he did – that is, that he could do whatever he wanted and God shouldn’t judge him. Cain complained that his punishment for murder was too great (Genesis 4:13-15). He was worried about his safety, not his sin. That’s exactly what the political left is worried about too. Wanting peace without righteousness leads us to trying to achieve the former through tyranny – through law and regulation.
And that’s how we’re to think of President Biden’s hysteria yesterday as he blamed not the murderer, but those of us who accept the responsibility of self-defense. And that’s how we’re to see all those emotional outbursts from deluded souls who cry out for Moloch to protect them but won’t lift a finger to defend themselves. God’s order is for the police to avenge crime and yet those calling for unbiblical and unconstitutional usurpations of self-defense law have routinely weakened the police.
This brings us to the third point. There are two options before us.
Living in a sinful world, there is always the threat of evil. We can meet that threat with self-defense and a Biblical civil magistrate that punishes criminals or we can become unarmed wards of the state, devoid of the tools of self-defense, putting all our hope upon the state. The latter is clearly unbiblical and no right thinking Christian – that is, a logical person – should clamor for it.
Called to reason (Isaiah 1:18) we must think soberly about the issue. Since Cain’s and Lamech’s are in the world, self-defense is necessary just as doctors are necessary due to sickness. Wishing away evil is childish. And so is dismissing the exigent fact that an unarmed person is vulnerable to aggression. The thought that American citizens should give up their self-defense weapons because some have abused them is unbiblical, historically ignorant, and in defiance of the commandment to love our neighbor.
Were the Jews armed when Hitler loaded them into boxcars and sent them to concentration camps? Were the Chinese that Mao killed armed? Were the Soviet citizens who perished in horrific gulags packing? Wherever in history you see unarmed populations you see abuse. Not if…when. Twenty innocent people losing their lives is no doubt a tragedy. But we must be sober minded. Unarmed citizens lost their lives to state tyranny within the last century to the tune of over 100 million lives.
The gun confiscation advocates dislike the police and yet would have a veritable police state in an unarmed population. To love our neighbor as ourselves is to not demand they give up their right and necessity to logical self-defense. To love our neighbor is to respect their God-given liberty, not demand that in the name of safety they become more vulnerable. Living in a fallen world requires the ability of self-defense. Taking someone’s ability to defend themselves is taking their freedom. An unarmed family in a sinful world may be many things; free they aren’t. They’re dependents. They’re servants. They’re slaves. They’re inmates.
Love does no wrong to a neighbor so love must mean that we don’t use the state to disarm a law-abiding neighbor. A man may give up his free speech. He may give up his arms. He may give up his property. Those are the rights of a free person. What isn’t a right is to take those things from a neighbor in the name of anything since they’re the very essence of freedom.
And make no mistake – we’re talking about gun confiscation. Murder and drugs are against the law, right? How’s that working out. Underage drinking is against the law. Making self-defense tools (guns) illegal only means that criminals will have them and lawful citizens won’t.
So, how do we lovingly approach the topic of mass murder? By telling the truth. And by being armed. Yes, by being armed. That’s the logic behind the 2nd amendment in the first place. A free people must have the ability to defend themselves against aggression or else they aren’t free. Slaves didn’t have firearms, did they? And when they were freed after the Civil War and went to get guns to defend themselves against racist attacks, it started the gun control movement. Racists didn’t want blacks that could shoot back. It’s hard to lynch someone who’s firing at you. Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, was much loathed by the white establishment of his day. His life was often in danger. Guess what? He and his cohorts were armed. No one is truly free if he/she doesn’t have the capability to defend themselves. Thus, loving our neighbor must mean being jealous for their liberty.
So don’t be a sissy-man. Don’t cave in to the caterwauling. When people say, “I’m sick of offering prayers…” I say the same thing. I’m sick of the arrogance of unarmed wimps daring to try and bully responsible men and women into disarmament. How dare men who run from danger turn and yell at those who will stand and fight. Who stopped the murderer? A hero with a gun. A hero who went into the danger to save others. The political gun-confiscating left is a party of crying weasel-bullies who want to use the police they loathe (remember the Defund the Police movement) to abuse law-abiding citizens. They’d send police to my house to confiscate my car because a drunk driver killed a man yesterday. Whether their concern for the dead is genuine or not I do not know, nor care. What I care about is the threat to disarm me. What I care about is “shall not be infringed…”
So, the cry-bullies should arm themselves. Or they can hide behind the men and women who will fight. That’s the solution. Until the Lord comes again in power and glory, and vanquishes sin once and for all, we must not be deceived by the Enemy disguised as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). Our swords we will not lay down to be beaten into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4), or our spears into pruning hooks, or our guns into garden tools, until the Prince of Peace comes.
Recent Comments